What should I be feeling...?

March 5 Friday

So today at the middle school was pretty fun. After lunch was over, all the students gathered in the gym for a game to play in honor of the 3rd years graduating. I wasn`t exactly sure what game we were playing, but I just followed along. It seems that the students have a time limit to find all the pictures that are hidden throughout the school. Once that 1st time limit is up, then they send a certain amount of people who are the "oni" or those who are "it" out to catch the other students. They`re allowed to go hide and stuff throughout the school, but they cannot run, so they speedwalk. lol It was pretty funny to see. haha. Anyways, after that game they then had to do a triatholon in which they played mini games of ping pong, basketball, and group jump rope.

March 6th and 7th Saturday and Sunday

Saturday, went to Asahikawa to have an awesome lunch with Su. We drove around awhile looking for a good place to go eat and decided to eat at this place called "Kankoku-mura" which means Korean village. And it was the first time, in a long time (say a year) that I had real Korean food and not just Japanese bibimbap (which btw, they think is Chinese.....>.<) or kimchi or kalbi/bulgogi. It was soooo good! The place was even decorated Korean style and everything. I hardcore missed sundubu and they totally had it there! Yes! Although I still really miss Irvine`s sundubu/Korean restaurants. Even more then that, I miss Korea, my other homeland aside from US, Taiwan, and Japan. haha. We talked for several hours and then went to go get my back breaklight fixed because the one on the left had gone out. Then went home to do absolutely nothing.

Sunday was just talking with family (which they are planning on coming here in the summer! Yay!) and cleaning the house.

March 10 Wednesday

Wow. So this day was the middle school 3rd years (9th graders) graduation. And it was so formal and very Japanesey. lol Well, first off, when I went into the teacher`s office all the teachers were wearing black. Just all black; black suits, black dresses, black shoes, black purses. And I was the only one who had a navy blue suit jacket with really thin white stripes and a red tank top underneath. I felt like I had walked into a funeral procession of sorts. So I asked one of the teachers here if I should also be in all black, but she says that I`m fine and that for happy celebrations like this Japanese people always wear black. Err...ok. o.O

Anyways, my predecessor also came to the celebration. He flew here from the states a couple of days ago to come see the 3rd years graduate since he was with them the longest. I think that maybe he secretly came to see his girlfriend who was a teacher at the middle school.......=P I was actually slightly, slightly late for the ceremony. All because I forgot my schedule book in the staff room so I had to run back from the gym to get it. eheh. But I still made it on time before the 3rd years came walking in and the band started playing the graduation song. There was so much bowing and strict formal tradition in this whole process. The students have to have a very good posture while walking to their seats or walking up to the stage/podium to accept their certificate from the principal. Bow once before the principle, accept the certificate, step back, bow again, take one step back and turn to face the audience, walk down the stairs, bow to the BOE on the opposite side of the teachers, walk to their parents (where a little white table was set up where the parents go up to the table when their child comes), bow to their parents, hand over the certificate to them, bow again, and walk with good posture back to their seats... I was quite surprised actually. But amazed at the good discipline of these kids.

Then afterwards, when the 3rd year students` representatives, one boy and one girl, came to the front to give a speech to everyone, it was the most heartwrenching sobfest ever! Because this is a small school and there is only 1 class for every grade level (no 3A, 3B, 3C. Just 3A cuz there`s not that many students that they all fit in one class), and because they`ve all been together for 9 years of their lives never changing classes and some have been together since preschool, this is the first time that they will be seperated from each other. All the students are going to different high schools as all the high schools here are like specialty schools. My best English speaking student is going all the way to Sapporo in the best language school there. So, because this is the first time they`re going to be leaving each other, they have so much precious memories together, that everyone started crying. The students made a speech to thank all the teachers, all the younger students, and lastly, their precious classmates. I told myself I wasn`t going to cry, but I ended up doing so. It was just so touching. I felt like this was an US high school graduation where that was the final stage for everyone leaving each other and going to different schools/countries.

After the speech, the 3rd years sang a chorus song for everyone. They had one student come play the piano and one student conduct. Now, everyone was still crying/sniffling from the speech and one of the boys, the conductor, was red from crying and couldn`t stop sniffling really. So when he got up there, he tried to look strong and hold it all back, but as soon as the song started because it was such a sad sounding song and to look at all your friends crying, he couldn`t hold it in any longer and tears started pouring from his face, yet he still conducted wonderfully. He actually had to close his eyes for a while because he couldn`t stop crying. It was, seriously, one of the most touching and heartbreaking graduation ceremonies I`ve ever been to. When asked later by my teachers about how was a Japanese graduation compared to American ones, I said that the American ones are usually a big celebration and everyone`s just ridiculously happy and having fun, especially college ones. The high school one is probably the only really tearing one because that`s when everyone really seperates. But middle school was never that bad. But then again, most schools in America are big and graduating classes are about 300 and more students. This school only had 25 students graduating. Yeah, the whole 3rd year (9th grade) consists of only 25 students.

After the sobfest, the students and their parents went to the Lakeside Sakuraoka hotel to have a party. The teachers also all went. It was a buffet style lunch, which was absolutely delicious, and then the kids all performed songs and just had fun. Then the MC called up all the teachers to make speeches. I was last and I was ready to give a good speech in English. It was simple slow English so that everyone, even the parents who have not studied English in forever can understand. Although i got a bit excited. haha. I started out with "minna (everyone) CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!" Everyone thought I was going to speak Japanese, but I busted out the English. heh. At the congratulations part all my students whooped and clapped and yelled. And I couldn`t help it, I got caught up in their enthusiasm, and let my American self go and also whooooooooooooo-ed into the mic. ehehe. I`m sure the other teachers were a little taken aback. But the kids were all for it. haha. I told them "your English is very good! So in high school, good luck! I believe in you. You can do it! Yes, you can!" And my students whooped again after that. And then I realized afterwards, oh, maybe I shouldn`t have did the whoop thing, cuz that might`ve scared the other teachers for a little bit. ehehe. Ah well, I`m American, let them just think that. Or at least I hope they`ll think that. ~_~;

After the ceremony we all went home and went to ponder about how I`m going to confess to Mr. Wonderful. I had already decided that I will confess to him on Wednesday night because that is the only night that I believe he will be alone in the classroom. Thursday night there will be other teachers there till late in the evening, and Friday night, he probably goes home early. So I decided to go at around 8pm. I went over there and saw that there were still 3 other cars there. So I went back home and decided to come over at 9pm, other teachers were still there. Went back home again, tried 10pm, and there was still at least one teacher there. So in the end after driving around for another 10 minutes I decided that I would just go in there, ask him to come out to talk in the hallway and confess to him there, as awkward and weird as it may be to the other teacher there. I got there ready to do it, then discovered that the lights were all off and all the cars were gone. *sigh* I had missed him by a couple of minutes. And I was so ready too....>.<; Man. I was thinking to myself how bad everything is turning out and decided to go home dejectedly.

At home, after having a good long talk with Collin about this mess, getting a guys POV, it made better sense to me to ask Mr. Wonderful out to dinner first before confessing. It`s better to confess in not a work environment. At school, it would be kind of awkward. Even though I would never really do that because I`m not really aggressive and I don`t like to take the initiative with a guy. But if I don`t, I won`t get my chance. And plus, he`s a Japanese guy, so unfortunately, being the foreign girl, I have to take the initiative... So I decided to do just that the next day.

March 11th Thursday

Well, I waited until the end of the day after 5th period to walk into his classroom to ask him to dinner. I was kind of nervous, but not as nervous as I was when I went to ask about the snowboard. I felt kind of....complacent..? Anyways, I walked in there, and as soon as I did, I forgot what I was going to say. And then I just stood there after saying hello to him and was like "oh no, I forgot what I was going to say...uh, hold on." And then finally was able to ask him about where he got placed in for his next school. He still doesn`t know yet apparetnly. Then I asked him are you always here until 9 or 10 at night which he says, "yes, just about every night." "Well then, what do you do about food?" "I go home to eat it afterwards." "At 10 at night?!!" "Yes. haha" "WOW." "Well, hmm...If you`re okay with it, how about dinner sometime? Maybe tonight? Or tomorrow?" "Uh, I`m pretty busy these last few days because of the graduation ceremonies coming up and everything." "Oh, yes, I understand. Then maybe next week? Monday?" "Mondays are not the best for me, tuesdays too. But maybe Wednesday might be ok." "Oh, alrgith then. Well, how about we exchange cell phone mail so that we can message each other a good time for it?" "Oh, yeah, sure that`d be fine."

So we exchanged cell phone mail addresses, but he said that his might be wrong because it`s so long that he can`t really remember it all himself. And indeed it was quite long. But he said that if it`s wrong and after he checks his email he`ll tell me again. Because neither of us had our phones on us since they were all in the staff room and we were in his classroom. So we chatted for 5 more minutes or so and then I told him I will text him and said thank you and left.

After school was over I went to the large playroom to see what my friend Yuki was doing. Her and my favorite "Winnie the Pooh-Kitagawa-sensei" and Mr. Wonderful were mixing paint to color the 6th grade graduation banner with. So I decided to help out to which Kitagawa-sensei was more than delighted. I love this man, my fav teacher here. SOOO Cute. Like a bear, and his voice sounds like Pooh too. heheh.^^ Well, he then left to go to do some other errands, and so it was jut me and the other two. I love chatting with Yuki because she`s so much fun and outgoing and happy and just a great gal all around. And it seems that Mr. Wonderful does too. He really liked to chat with her. All I could do, because I`m not yet fluent in Japanese, and it was difficult to hear everything spoken in normal speed Japanese, was just sit there, nod and occasionally laugh at their comments. I couldn`t really say anythnig because I wasn`t sure what they were saying. I did ask some questions but there were mainly about vocab and what the subject that they were talking about. It`s difficult to grasp subjects in japanese as they don`t really say them sometimes....

So after seeing them go at it with a wonderful fun time conversation, I realized how pitiful my Japanese level was and how inept at conversation I was in it. And how I could never have as lively a conversation as they could have together. He really laughed alot and had fun talking with her. And maybe, I got a sense that he might be into her. Maybe. I`m not sure, but judging by how wonderful the two of them seemed to go together and their convo, I`d say the two might do better together than I would, and that maybe he liked her. *sigh* I don`t know.

At the end of the day before I went home, I didn`t feel excited or exhilarated or accomplished at asking him out to dinner. I just felt....normal. I had a Parent-child English conversation class to do that night and it was the last of this year`s, so I focused on doing that. We made peanut butter balls and grilled cheese sandwiches. The kids had so much fun makin the peanut butter balls because you have to use your hands. And the moms loved the grilled cheese sandwiches. My kids said that they loved my class and they wanted to have more with me. When I told them no more, they were all pretty sad. Aww. I love my children. I think that maybe I should channel my love for Mr. Wonderful into the love that I have for these kids. It would maybe be put to better use instead of this futile lovesick feeling that might not amount to anything. Le sigh.

Otsukare for reading guys! Pics will be up later on. Love